


stars

by Anonymous



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angel Kim Jongin | Kai, Angst, Bottom Kim Jongin | Kai, Deities, Deity Byun Baekhyun, Happy Ending, M/M, Reincarnation, Resurrection, Top Byun Baekhyun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:49:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28763604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Baekhyun falls for an angel; the universe gets remade.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Kim Jongin | Kai
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38
Collections: Etherealboys Round 3





	stars

+++

  
  
In the silence that follows, Baekhyun realizes, that a light could indeed be loud. In the aftermath of destruction, he supposes, nothing matters anymore. Things were lost. To the fire. To greed. He'd watched worlds grow and collapse. Expand and cave in like an old, rotten tree. Either the world bends for you or it doesn't. Either the occupants performed well enough for the force of nature they named God, or they don't.

Baekhyun had watched worlds crumble and fall, but he had never, in his very long life, seen an angel.

Isn't he an angel? He's pretty like one. Sitting upon a mountain of debris. Once a building. Not so long ago. Maybe fifty years, give or take, a mere blink in Baekhyun's total lifespan. An angel settling upon the dust, sent straight from the heavens.

And his light is so loud.

Baekhyun is not an angel. He's a being of the light. He'd existed, when it existed. And he'll go where it goes. Baekhyun is a being of the light, a being attracted to light.

"Angel," Baekhyun calls, his voice carries well over the plain. The angel whips his head around, seeing Baekhyun for the first time. His eyes are wide, lost.

Things to fire, Baekhyun thinks. But not this one.

"What are you doing there?" Baekhyun says again, "come down."

"Who are you?" The angel asks. His robes lay tattered around him, stained brown with dirt.

"Baekhyun." Baekhyun advances towards the pile. "It's not safe out here, angel."

The angel looks at him sharply, a scowl forming on his pretty face. "How do you know?"

"I just do."

"That's not an answer."

"Where are your wings, angel?" Baekhyun stops at the bottom of the pile of debris.

"Lost," the angel replies. "Who are you?"

"I'm Baekhyun."

"That's not an answer."

"It is."

"This is an empty world," the angel says, "what are you doing here?"

"Why are _you_ in an empty world, angel?"

"I've been cast out," he says, eyes flitting about.

"Of heaven?" Baekhyun asks.

The angel nods.

Baekhyun extends a hand. God dares to expel this beautiful angel out of heaven. Baekhyun had existed before his God. He's the beginning himself.

"Come with me, angel," Baekhyun offers. "Let's find a world that's not dead."

The angel seems to float down, rags barely clinging to his body. He stops in front of Baekhyun, and looks down on him.

"Change worlds?" He tilts his head.

Baekhyun nods, hands still outstretched in front of him.

The angel hesitates, but puts his hand in Baekhyun's. Their skins touch and he glows. He's warm.

"My name is Jongin," the angel says, "I'm an angel of love."

-

When the moon shines, the angel dances.

"You like to dance, angel?" Baekhyun asks. They're in a different world. One where the air doesn't smell like filth and grime. There are two moons here, and the angel's twists are sharper. His feet quicker.

The angel spares him a smile, one that is brighter than moonlight and warmer than this planet's core.

"I do."

Soft hands pull Baekhyun to his feet, and he is coaxed to dance. Left to stumble over the blades of grass beneath them.

The angel laughs, pretty like bells and glittering like pearls.

"Beings of light do not dance, " Baekhyun huffs.

"Come." The angel curls his fingers on the swaths of black silk around Baekhyun's waist. "The moons will pass soon."

"I told you I don't dance, angel," Baekhyun murmurs. Their foreheads meet in a gentle touch. This close, Baekhyun could count the length of his lashes, the pillow-like thickness of his lips.

They sway, guided by moonlight and the angel's careful teasing. Baekhyun hums a tune. A song of old that even the angel would not know.

"What is that?" The angel whispers. His breath sweet over Baekhyun's face.

"A song of creation," Baekhyun murmurs. "How the light made the world came to be."

"It's nice."

"It speaks of the truth."

"It's nice."

"It speaks of how I came to be." 

The angel leans close. Closer than Baekhyun had let anyone. He is intoxicating, even this petulant. Baekhyun lets him get away with too much.

"You would know about how beings come to be."

"Are you testing me, angel?" Baekhyun asks. Their dance has stopped. Still, the angel holds him close. Hands too familiar and too comfortable around Baekhyun's neck.

The angel smiles and Baekhyun's breath catch. He barely resists creating a halo around the angel's head. "Maybe I am."

He slips away from Baekhyun's grasp, stares up at the moons with mirth. He brings the twin silver in his eyes when he turns around. Hands clasped demurely behind his back.

Moondust settles around Jongin like a shroud. In the years Baekhyun has spent roaming galaxies, he has never seen anything so ethereal. Has never seen anything so godly.

And Baekhyun has no god. Bows to none.

"You should find out," the angel whispers.

"How?" Baekhyun breathes out.

The angel floats, again, to Baekhyun. Carried by the light that adores him.

He cradles Baekhyun's face with gentle fingers, eyes sharp in the waning night. He's too captivating, even this petulant. "However you want."

-

The angel has a penchant for flowers. The ones that bloom green across the plains of 1500 BC Kandahar. Baekhyun takes him there just to see them.

"It's gorgeous," Jongin exclaims. The sun beats down his bare back, bathing everything in fire and sunlight. Jongin glows golden in it. Skin a long mile of dew and honey under the minimal linen he still chooses to wear.

"Yes," Baekhyun replies distractedly, watching the crinkle in Jongin's eyes as he smiles. He learns of want today. Of a greed so vast it makes him ache. He learns to yearn. Of wanting to lay claim to what is forbidden. Of the pull of bronzed skin and words made sweeter by a deeper voice. "It is."

-

Baekhyun falls into him under the stars. Licks sweat straight from honeyed skin. The angel has a penchant for flowers and so Baekhyun makes sure he lays in a bed of one. He's hot, hot, _hot_. Hotter than supernovas Baekhyun has walked into, brighter than the starts of universes.

He stutters _inside_ , hands gripping like a vice. Mouth seeking friction, swallows sounds and sighs. They rock together, move together. They explode like flowers blooming, his angel more beautiful than. Spread underneath him with flushed cheeks and ochre running through his veins.

Baekhyun gives in, gives up, gives his angel everything. He lets his light consume them both, pushes it in until Jongin is screaming with it. Eyes wide and white and catching fire.

When he opens his eyes, he shines.

Jongin has Baekhyun's light under his skin. Mixing with his own. It is loud, and it is _his._

He will not dim.

-

"Do you have a wish, angel?"

Baekhyun lays next to his angel on the softest of satins. The white sand contrasts his tan. Pulls the most beauty out of it. Ever since Baekhyun discovered how lovely and malleable gold is on Jongin's skin, he always takes them where the sun shines brightest.

"A wish?"

"Something you truly want."

Jongin pauses, rolls over to fit himself on Baekhyun's side. Clings to him like Baekhyun will go. Baekhyun doesn't want to go anywhere.

"You have given me everything I could ever want."

"Playing smart, angel."

"It is true." He lays his head on Baekhyun's chest with a sigh, curls soft between Baekhyun's fingers.

Baekhyun pauses. "Not even your wings?"

He raises his head, then, addresses Baekhyun with the softest of smiles. "My wings were taken for falling in love with the one who gave them to me," Jongin murmurs. "I have no need for grim reminders."

Baekhyun caresses his cheek, it is his hand's favorite spot lately. He finds no need to anguish over it. "You are brave."

He does not know where the softness in his voice comes from. But it is always there when he speaks to and of his angel. Baekhyun had not known love. Has seen it in other beings' dreams and every universe, but has not touched it until now. Until it came to him in a world gone past, until it is in his arms, breathing and warm and alive.

"I was a fool, but not a regretful on," Jongin says.

Baekhyun continues to look, unable not to. Jongin holds him captive. Has his very being tethered to him.

"Because it led me to you."

Baekhyun kisses him, then. With a gentleness he did not know he possess. Coaxes him into his back so he can devour him again, and again.

"Then I'm glad." Baekhyun lets his tongue linger on the skin beneath Jongin's throat, just to feel him shudder. "I'm glad you lost them."

-

"I am yours, angel," Baekhyun says after, spent and boneless, with his angel's heartbeat on his fingertips. "To keep or to leave behind."

Jongin drags his mouth over Baekhyun's chest, dips his tongue past Baekhyun's lips. "To keep," he whispers against reddened mouth, "forever."

In all of his existence, Baekhyun has never known a light to be so all-consuming and all-encompassing. But Jongin is here. His light so loud that it is all Baekhyun can see. That it is all Baekhyun can feel. Baekhyun is a being of light, and he is attracted to it. He goes where the light goes.

He wants. For the first time in his existence, Baekhyun wants.

"Yes," Baekhyun's fingers tighten on warm skin, thinks about bottling sunlight in a jar and keeping it close to his heart, "forever."

-

Where there is light, there is darkness. One cannot exist without the other and Baekhyun knows it's only a matter of time before darkness catches up to him.

Jongdae comes to him in a dream, unable to cross to this plane as Baekhyun is unable to cross to his. He is bathed in white silk, face hard when he pours into Baekhyun's consciousness. Stains his dream with drops of darkness. 

"He's not made out of your light," Jongdae says, "you can't keep him."

"No."

"He is without a home. Without a creator to claim him, he falls into the darkness. He is my dominion."

" _No._ "

"As it has been and as it will always be." Jongdae says. "As is written and sealed."

"No, Jongdae," Baekhyun clutches his arms, voice barely above a whisper. "You cannot take him from me."

"It is not mine to decide," Jongdae says in a hushed voice. "You agreed to this."

"I blessed him, Jongdae," Baekhyun fights. "I blessed him with my light, with my essence. He is saved."

Jongdae slides a cool hand over his cheek. Baekhyun shivers. "Poor thing." There is nothing in Jongdae's eyes. Just the cold, black, darkness. "He who has fallen cannot be saved."

-

At the beginning of reality, there was nothing, and then there was everything. Jongdae came to be first, a consciousness born out of too much nothing. And with Jongdae, came Baekhyun. Where one exist, the other exists. Where one ends, the other ends. They are separate but one, divided and unable to touch. Darkness and light.

One cannot go to the other, for darkness is merely but wholly the absence of light, and within the light, there is no darkness.

The darkness claims over the fallen, the ones discarded by their makers, the ones lost to fires and pride.

And so Baekhyun wakes up with no angels beside him, screaming.

-

Baekhyun stands at the edge of existence. The wide chasm that divides the balance of known universe. It is what separates his realm from Jongdae's. Jongdae rules over nothing, Baekhyun rules over everything.

Jongdae appears in front of him in a cloud of jet-black surrounded by stark white. The curl of his lips marks distaste, and the frown on his face is thunderous.

"You are going into the darkness."

"Yes."

"You would do this? Kill yourself and reframe the workings of the universe just so you can chase after an angel?"

"Yes."

"You would destroy yourself, and me in the process, just so you can go after a lesser being."

Baekhyun barks out a bitter laugh. "We are all lesser beings, Jongdae!" He says. "The point of our existence is to simply exist without end. Without want. Without need. It is not existing, Jongdae."

Jongdae turns away. "Do as you may," he says, cold. "Burn reality if you must. But know that you will be wholly responsible for every undoing done, for every misfortune caused, for every single hurt and despair in the new universe created. For you will have unraveled the threads of fate, and destroyed us all."

Jongdae disappears in a great whirlwind, and Baekhyun is left at the edge of reality with his despair and his broken heart.

He takes a step forward. Jongdae's words ringing in his ears, Baekhyun falls into the darkness. 

-

It takes years. Thousands upon thousands wading in deep, thick, darkness. But Baekhyun has done it. Has dredged up enough of Jongin to remember. To capture the essence of him.

It's been millenias since Baekhyun brought out the loom. He weaves. Out of what he could salvage, out of what is left.

His hands tremble as he sets the needles, wounds the threads. Hurry, hurry. His strength is fading fast.

His vision swims, and Baekhyun has been so accustomed to the darkness that he barely notices when it goes at all. He pricks his fingers on the needle. Once, twice, thrice. He works with wet hands. The cold seeps down to his bones. He coughs. Once, twice. He shakes.

With the last of the fading light, Baekhyun pushes his last being into creation. And then ceases to exist at all.

-

Byun Baekhyun was born in the summer of 1992 in a small house in Bucheon. His family has a pet dog, and a smart family sedan. At the age of eighteen, Baekhyun decided to fuck with it and moved to Seoul.

The university he's attending isn't so bad, ranked number something-teen in the country. The music program is excellent. It is Baekhyun who is not. Three years and a breath away from his degree, Baekhyun feels like dropping out.

"You look like shit," Jongdae declares. "We're going out."

"Where are we going?" Baekhyun mumbles, lets himself be dragged through corridors and the haze of sleep.

"Convenience store," Jongdae says, "and then a bar."

Baekhyun sighs, shakes off Jongdae's hand to zip up his jacket properly. "Sounds good."

In the darkness of the night, Baekhyun sees him first. Sitting with his knees tucked underneath his chin. There's a glow about him. Something that draws Baekhyun in like a moth to a flame. He walks forward, as if tethered by a leash. To his direction.

The boy looks up, and Baekhyun's breath catches on his throat.

"Angel," he blurts out.

"Pardon me?"

"No--I mean, you look like--I mean, you could be--I mean" Baekhyun stammers, cheeks heating up out of his own volition.

"Hyung?"

Baekhyun finally notices the other boy next to him. Oh Sehun. Lives in a frat with Junmyeon-hyung.

He raises an eyebrow at Baekhyun's apparent floundering. "What are you doing here?"

"Getting uh. Snacks. With Jongdae." Baekhyun jerks his thumb over his shoulder at the mart, where Jongdae has been spending a good chunk of 15 minutes.

A hand tugs on his wrist. Baekhyun looks down to find it attached to the same boy-stranger. He tilts his head to the side. Pretty eyes glittering and pretty mouth curved up into a pretty smile.

"You were saying."

"I'm uh. Byun Baekhyun." 

"Kim Jongin." The smile widens. Baekhyun feels lightheaded. "It's nice to meet you."

"Likewise." Jongin hasn't let go of his hand, and Baekhyun's flush deepens. 

"Baekhyun-hyung," Jongin says, sounding the name out. Baekhyun likes the way it rolls off his tongue. The way Jongin's deep tenor curls over the second syllable. "Walk with me?"

-

He steals glances at Jongin as they walk, feels like he's fifteen all over again, crushing hard on a girl two years his senior. The night air is cool against Baekhyun's face, slight wind rumpling his hair. Jongin keeps his hands in his pocket, steps sure and unwavering. Even as he fixes his eyes on the sky, like he's looking for something. His shoulders are so broad.

"Have we... met before?" Baekhyun hesitates. "I feel like I've seen you somewhere before."

"Funny," Jongin muses, "I was about to say the same."

"Huh," Baekhyun's lips quirk up into a lopsided smile, "maybe I have one of those faces."

"Maybe you do." Jongin chuckles. "Maybe I've seen you in a dream."

"Maybe." Baekhyun shrugs. He follows Jongin's gaze and finds the moon. It looks brighter, tonight. Bigger somehow. Following Jongin and Baekhyun in their little trek down the river. Reflects prettily on the murky surface of the water.

Jongin stops suddenly, and Baekhyun almost runs into him.

Jongin looks sheepish when he turns around and asks. "This is really forward but may I kiss you?"

Baekhyun nods wordlessly, and even though it was Jongin who asked. It's him who closes the distance between them. His palms fit the curve of Jongin's jaw perfectly, and there is familiarity in the give of Jongin's lips against his.

There's familiarity everywhere. In the hands ghosting the dip of his waist. The way he knows Jongin will gasp when he flicks his tongue at the roof of his mouth. Knows how to tease and how to coax soft sighs out of Jongin. When Jongin pulls away, Baekhyun knows to rest their foreheads together. Knows that Jongin likes the closeness, and knows that Jongin tastes like mint.

"Baekhyun," Jongin whispers. Baekhyun knows the length of Jongin's eyelashes. How gold looks on him. How gentle ivory will replenish him. Baekhyun doesn't know his birthday, though. Or if he has any siblings or pets or what his parents' names are.

Baekhyun knows a lot and not at all.

"Angel," Baekhyun murmurs. Calling him this, feels right, too. "Go out on a date with me?" They sway where they stand, leaning against each other. Baekhyun has a vivid flash of two moons and a field of grass. 

"Yeah," Jongin says, steals another kiss and a breath from Baekhyun. "I'd like that."

+++


End file.
